Now E-Textbooks Can Report Back on Students’ Reading Habits

Data mining is creeping into every aspect of student life—classrooms, advising, socializing. Now it’s hitting textbooks, too. CourseSmart, which sells digital versions of textbooks by big publishers, announced on Wednesday a new tool to help professors and others measure students’ engagement with electronic course materials. When students use print textbooks, professors can’t track their reading. But as learning shifts online, everything students do in digital spaces can be monitored, including the intimate details of their reading habits.